Advocacy and Community Outreach

The American Medical Association (AMA) is the largest national organization of specialty medical societies and critical stakeholders in medicine. Through our local WashU Med chapter, the AMA seeks to provide opportunities to attend conferences, lobby, get involved in local action, and engage through community service. If you’re interested in advocacy and want to learn more about the intersection between lobbying, public health, and health care policy, then AMA would be a great student organization for you.

American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) is an organization that functions from the local to national level to advance women in medicine and improve women’s health. It is open to all students and consists of students interested in meeting female faculty, participating in community outreach events, attending programming to increase awareness of issues such as body-image awareness and interpersonal violence, and participating in socials. AMWA does not have weekly or monthly meetings for general members; members are free to choose which events they are interested in and sign up as desired. Events are held year-round, and AMWA is one of the largest organizations on campus. Some fun events we had this year include cheer stations for Girls on the Run, a Clerkship Advice dinner with more senior students, a Period Product and Diaper Supply Drive, book clubs, multiple small breakfasts with faculty who identify as women, tons of collaborations with other student organizations here at WashU Med, and so much more!

CHOICES (Choosing Healthy Options In Our Community, Environment, and Schools) for Youth in Detention is an innovative outreach effort dedicated to improving the health and well-being of incarcerated teens. The program visits the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center weekly, and each student volunteer presents a health topic about once per month. Our hour-long sessions are structured as conversations rather than formal lectures, and we foster engagement through example cases and demonstrations. We currently have presentations on safe sex, mental health, toxic stress, healthy relationships, and addiction, and student volunteers are encouraged to add their topics. In addition to giving WashU Med students the unique opportunity to work with this marginalized and underserved population, our program provides a powerful introduction to disparities in health literacy, obstacles in health education, and issues in correctional medicine.

The Dementia Understanding Opportunity (DUO) is a year-long program for students to learn about the everyday experience of living with dementia. In partnership with the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center (ADRC), students from the MD, PT, and OT programs are paired with mentors in the St. Louis community living with early-onset dementia. Students meet with their mentors monthly to learn about their experiences living with their diagnosis and build personal relationships with their mentors and caregivers over the year. DUO also meets monthly as a student organization to debrief, host guest speakers, and discuss ongoing developments in dementia care.

Every year, medical students at WashU Med (mainly M1s) write and publish the Dis-Orientation (Dis-O) Guide, which is a resource intended to introduce incoming students to St. Louis, WashU Med, and life as a medical student. When I was deciding where to go for medical school, the Dis-O Guide actually played a serious role in leading me to WashU because it gave me so much insight into the school and city. I haven’t seen anything else like it at other institutions, and I still continue to reference the Dis-O Guide for advice and resources even to this day. Hopefully you’ll find this year’s edition to be super helpful for you as well!

The Health Career Collaborative (HCC) mission is to provide mentorship, engaging health curriculum, and exposure to health careers to to high school students from underrepresented minority communities in St. Louis. HCC currently has monthly meetings with students from Clyde C. Miller High School, during which we walk them through hands-on activities like pig heart dissections. My favorite lesson was bringing them to WashU Med’s Institute for Surgical Education, where surgery residents taught the students basic surgical skills! Getting to know the students over the year and seeing how continuously curious they are is always rewarding.

The Health Screening Education Group (HSEG) is a new educational resource that provides medical students interested in volunteering in the St. Louis community with opportunities to practice basic clinical and communication skills. There are many existing student groups at WashU Med that organize health-oriented volunteer opportunities for medical students; Health Screening Education will host training sessions throughout the year for incoming students, allowing them to practice skills such as taking vitals, checking blood glucose, and having conversations with patients, in order to ensure that they feel prepared when volunteering in the St. Louis community.

The Interprofessional Pro Bono Clinic is an interdisciplinary clinic where WashU MD, PT, and OT students are able to put into practice some of the concepts learned in class and provide holistic care to patients at no cost. Phase One, Two, and Three MD students are welcome to work in the clinic in different roles. Phase One students can take a patient history, practice the basics of the physical exam, and counsel patients on the social determinants of health under the supervision of an attending physician.

The Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) here at WashU Med and nationwide aims to support medical students that want to improve health care equity regarding the Latin population. This organization is open to everyone from any background. We have previously connected with our local Latin community and even with other LMSA chapters at nearby medical schools. This has personally helped me find mentorship, find community, and stay connected with my culture after moving to a new city far from home. We plan social events like Charlas to meet other Spanish-speaking health professionals and to provide a sense of community with each other. In addition, we provide service opportunities in our local St. Louis community, such as volunteering at local health fairs to provide free basic health care to individuals who have difficulty getting into the medical system in St. Louis. LMSA also coordinates Medical Spanish (MedSpan), an elective course that allows medical students to learn Spanish in a clinical setting and eventually become certified as interpreters. We look forward to meeting and welcoming you soon!

LGBTQmed is an affinity group at WashU Med dedicated to fostering community amongst LGBTQmed students, educating peers on LGBTQ+ health care topics, and advocating for the health and well-being of queer individuals. We also partner closely with OUTMed, which is more broadly composed of faculty members and students from other health care programs, for social, educational, and mentoring purposes. Some of our main events include participation in St. Louis and Tower Grove Pride, panels with queer-identifying physicians or those who treat predominantly queer populations, and social events to strengthen connections between students. We also partner with other affinity groups to facilitate discussions on intersectionality in health care.

Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) is an international organization dedicated to educating medical students about abortion and reproductive health care at large. The MSFC chapter at WashU Med is involved in advocacy, community organizing, and outreach for reproductive justice here in St. Louis and on a national level. We coordinate lunch talks and panels with abortion providers and reproductive justice activists, canvass for pro-choice candidates, attend local protests and fundraisers, and advocate for abortion rights protections in state and federal legislation. MSFC also hosts an annual Conference on Family Planning, which includes workshops on IUD insertion and manual vacuum aspiration.

NICU Cuddlers is a volunteer group through St. Louis Children’s Hospital that provides comfort to babies in the NICU. As a part of the Cuddlers program, we go into the NICU for a weekly shift and spend time holding and rocking the babies to help with their emotional, social, and physical development. The program is a great way to give back to the St. Louis community and give parents peace of mind when they cannot always be there for their children. NICU Cuddlers has been an amazing experience, and I cannot imagine a more fulfilling study break!

With Pediatric Life Savers (PLS), we have the opportunity to teach infant and child CPR to parents and caregivers who have children in the ICU at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. We have the immense privilege of helping prepare parents for these emergency situations, giving them the confidence to take action to save a life. Membership in this group allows students to gain their BLS certification early, get early exposure to working with patients’ families, and provide the opportunity to engage in the community.

The Saturday Scholars Program is one of WashU Med’s longest standing outreach programs and volunteer opportunities, started over 30 years ago. The Office of Diversity Programs sponsors this student-run program. It brings about 60 students from local high schools to campus for five Saturdays of organ system-focused lectures, case studies, clinical skills, and anatomy lab. Medical student volunteers of all levels run every session, work directly with students, and gain valuable teaching experience while opening up the world of medicine and giving back to the St. Louis community. As a high-school participant in the program in 2014 and now a four-time medical student volunteer, I can attest to its profound impact on students’ high-school careers. This is a meaningful way to shape your medical school story.

The Science and Healthcare Abilities Coalition (SHAC) is WashU Med’s disability affinity and advocacy group. We are an interdisciplinary organization with members across programs within the medical school. SHAC aims to improve health care for disabled people and create a community for students with disabilities and chronic illnesses and their allies across all programs at WashU Med. Some of our past work includes incorporating content on caring for disabled patients into all three Phases of the MD Gateway Curriculum, including a Keystone Integrated Science Course (KISC) focusing on living in the community with a disability. We also host meetings for community building, experience sharing, and student-to-student support.

Established in 1964 by medical students from Howard University and Meharry medical schools, the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) is a student-led organization committed to promoting an environment in which underrepresented, minoritized medical students can excel, addressing and improving health care delivery to medically underserved communities, and increasing the number of clinically excellent, culturally competent, and socially conscious physicians. At WashU Med, SNMA hosts many events to promote student well-being and acclimation while creating spaces for mentorship to flourish from the undergraduate level to residency and beyond. Here at WashU Med, we are privileged to be a part of the rich and diverse history of St. Louis while also recognizing the longstanding health inequities in our surrounding community. SNMA at WashU Med strives to build bridges within our community, at the medical school, and with the greater St. Louis area. We are so excited for you to join us and can’t wait to see how your presence helps us cultivate a spirit of unity!

Unhoused Health seeks to provide medical students with a deeper understanding of the housing landscape in St. Louis and the effect of housing status and stigma on health care outcomes. We aim to expand medical students’ opportunities to work with and learn from an often misunderstood and diverse population by providing the unhoused community of St. Louis with low-barrier health care and addiction support. We prioritize judgment-free care, a harm-reduction philosophy, structural violence frameworks, and partnerships with existing community resources and workers as a group. In addition to connecting students with the local community, we frequently host lunch/dinner talks at WashU Med, focusing on the psychiatric, infectious, and dermatological effects of housing instability.